Were just as fleeting as the season we call spring?

I looked up and was startled to realize the gaze I’d felt on me was, in fact, real. Mostly, I just feel a little self conscious without any reason. Just another face in a sea of people going about their mundane duties in a busy city. How silly to think anyone is paying even an ounce of attention to what I’m doing. The ego is a hungry animal.

But there it was. The gaze that caused me to spill the last bit of my coffee as I recollected myself in front of my computer, which was really only serving as a prop at this point in the late winter afternoon. Our eyes met and I quickly looked back down at the brown ring now taking over the cover of my copy of Diaries. I dabbed at it with a napkin, but decided it gave the book a bit more character. I remained frozen, terrified to meet his big brown eyes again.

When I’d composed myself and collected enough courage to look up again, he was gone. The only thing left behind was the flush on my cheeks.

I think I miss him most when I remember the morning he gazed at me across from our cups of coffee, casually inserting his long elegant fingers into the tears of my jeans.

I blush and ask him what he’s staring at. He says, “What? I can’t just look at you?” I’ve never felt so uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time. We could sit in silence and never grow tired of it. I’d never experienced the phenomenon of sitting across from myself. To be with someone, yet to feel like you’re all by yourself is an eerie thing.

We walk to the train. He picks me up to kiss me goodbye, my feet far from the ground. He says, “I’ll see you later?” I nod sheepishly. He looks back as he descends the stairs.

it’s just my love letter to the world.

While Labor Day is not actually the official end of summer (I repeat, LABOR DAY IS NOT THE OFFICIAL END OF SUMMER), it sure can feel like it. I prefer a glass half full approach to this holiday weekend- meaning, buck up, we’ve still got another three weeks of summer (fall begins on September 22nd- also known as Smitty and my father’s birthday). However, if you are a bit more pessimistic and it’s about to be check out time at your summer share house, I understand your desire to go out with a bang.

It was a weird summer, let’s be serious. The weather was the equivalent of most of my decision making- it didn’t know what it wanted to do. Fortunately, we only got blasted with one intolerable heatwave and for the most part there was plenty of sun. While the majority of my friends posted pictures from Ibiza to Istanbul, I sat on the sidelines watching enviously as I scoured the internet looking for a new home in the borough of Brooklyn. That endeavor turned out to be about as successful as transporting a snow cone through the Sahara.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the half full or half empty camp, Labor Day is now upon us and we must prepare. Sunglasses, swimsuits, and sunscreen, ahoy.